Writing is one of the hardest and most important components of academic life. Every scholar has experienced the push-pull feeling of wanting to write but finding the motivation evaporates the moment you sit down to get started. The National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD) offers a solution to that dilemma, available for free to all UofSC faculty and staff members.

The NCFDD’s 14-Day Writing Challenge program provides evidence-based motivation and tools to help participants jumpstart their writing or other scholarly project in just 30 minutes per weekday, over two weeks this summer, from Monday June 20 through Sunday, July 3. During this period, participants will:

• Time and track their daily, 30-minute writing sessions using the NCFDD’s WriteNow software platform.
• Enjoy group accountability and camaraderie by taking part in the WriteNow 14-day challenge community. Each participant will be grouped with other participants to share comments and encouragement with a like-minded community of writers. Participants can also interact with the entire writing challenge community through a dedicated chat room.
• Receive daily emails with writing tips, motivational concepts and additional resources. (Participants may opt out of these emails.)
• Interact with an AI comment bot to get a daily shot of motivation when they need it most.

In addition to these tools, the 14-Day Writing Challenge also offers significant flexibility to suit the needs of every participant. For the purposes of this program, writing can refer to any scholarly activity ranging from the spark of a new idea to a completed project (article, grant proposal, exhibit, book chapter, etc.). So, even if your summer project is not about writing per se, you can still take advantage of the NCFDD challenge to get the timing, tracking and motivation you need to jumpstart it. And, though the program encourages everyone to take the weekends off, all registered participants have access to WriteNow 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so you can log in and get to work at any time that suits your schedule.

Register by Wednesday, June 15, to join the next 14-Day Writing Challenge, June 20 through July 3. You will be prompted to activate your free NCFDD account using the UofSC institutional membership sponsored by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. The activation process is quick and easy—no special codes or waiting required.

1 June 2022